Erasing Myself

In keeping with Bakhtin's model of the engaged reader, I found myself interacting with Dr. Power's objections against Alan Jacobs' "Hermeneutics of Love."

I had not realized that Jacobs furthers the argument for male patriarchy by rejecting Adrienne Rich in favor of stronger male voices, such as those of Auden and Kierkegaard. I also had not noticed the implications in Jacobs' preference of Tompkins, who sees women as redeeming men as opposed to leaving men out of the equation. However, part of me has to agree with Jacobs when he says that Adrienne Rich, the quixotic reader, conforms her view of Emily Dickinson to herself and consequently misses some of the richness that this author has to offer. This is why I agree with Jacobs that Tompkins is the more charitable reader.

Dr. Power's accusation that Jacobs has attempted to "erase the reader and the reader's prerogatives before the text in the face of the author's greater authority and reality" leads me to make a remote connection between Formalism and poststructuralism. Obviously, Jacobs advocates for something completely different, but his alleged "death of the reader" reminds me of streams of criticism that renounce the author. The trend towards killing the author has frustrated proponents of ethnic and postcolonial literature as these authors have struggled for a voice, only to be told that they do not matter.

However, I disagree with Powers' basic reading of Jacobs, especially when he describes Jacobs' charitable reader as erasing himself. When I read Jacobs' article, I noticed that he did not advocate the annihilation of the author. He writes that "kenosis in the sense of self-evacuation or self-annihilation is forbidden by the Bakhtinian understanding of love" (107). Jacobs favors Bakhtin and cites his works over and over again, and he makes a point of voicing his distrust of Dostoevsky, who holds to the self-annihilation theory. Instead, he advocates self-renunciation, an action I see as distinct from self-erasure.

In my opinion, Powers' proposed "loving reading" does not contradict Bakhtin and Jacobs. In fact, its celebration of the undying, growing discourse resembles Jacobs' work. Jacobs cites Bakhtin: "Nothing is absolutely dead: every meaning will have its homecoming festival" (96). I associate this quote with not only eschatology but the resurrection, which I consider a type of transfiguration. Therefore, I think that Jacobs would agree with Powers' statement that "the goal of love is transfiguration, not repetition." In addition, Powers' model of the charitable reader who expands upon the author's work fits into Bakhtin's theory of heteroglossia since it makes room for multiple, related interpretations that interact with and shed light on a larger truth.